Stateline New South Wales

The Week

QUENTIN DEMPSTER: Well said. Lauren Martin reporting. Now some of the stories of the week in regional New South Wales. Tracy Bowden.

TRACY BOWDEN: Coffs Harbour's Big Bannana is to be tarted up. The first stage of the multimillion-dollar project includes a high-tech, 3D video history of banana growing in the Coffs basin. And it'll be an interactive experience.

At Nimbin and Lismore police are telling people to watch out for fake $50 notes. A counterfeit note was used in a Nimbin shop early this week and four others have been found in Lismore.

Any chance of Newcastle retaining its rail line into the central business district seems to have faded away. At the Shires Association meeting in Sydney, a motion demanding the Government save the line was passed, but it didn't impress Transport Minister John Watkins. He told the meeting the rail line was going and it would be good for the people of the Lower Hunter.

Taree and Port Macquarie were this week dubbed the "welfare capitals" of regional New South Wales. Mind you, the Centrelink figures which led to this apparently damning indictment include over 20,000 aged pensioners - people not generally regarded as bludgers.

At Orange, the city council is thinking about a bit of downsizing. There'll soon be new laws which will allow councils to actually reduce their number of councilors. Orange City Council may decide to reduce its numbers from 14 to 11.

Wild, but dead, dogs hanging from trees near main roads are apparently offending tourists in the Tenterfield area. The carcasses of wild dogs are traditionally strung up by their hind legs as a sort of advertisement for the work of the cullers. While the shire council wants the wild dogs culled, it believes the public display of the carcasses is insensitive and must stop.